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CHILDES WorkshopWenjuan Qin

Harvard Graduate School of Education

Agenda• CHILDES Overview

• CHAT Transcription

• Transcribing essays

• Transcribing classroom discussions

• Clause Coding

CHILDES• Child Language Data Exchange System

(Snow & MacWhinney, 1983)

• Automate the process of data analysis

• Obtain better data in a consistent, fully-documented transcription system

• Provide more data for children from diverse backgrounds

CHILDES• Child Language Data Exchange System

(Snow & MacWhinney, 1983)

• CLAN: Computerized Language Analysis

• CHAT: Codes for Human Analysis of Transcripts

• Database: CHILDES Database

CHILDES• Child Language Data Exchange System

(Snow & MacWhinney, 1983)

• CLAN: Computerized Language Analysis

• CHAT: Codes for Human Analysis of Transcripts

• Database: CHILDES Database

CLAN• Automate the process of data analysis:

• Lexical measures:

• word frequency, lexical diversity (vocd), morphological complexity, lexical density

• search for specific words/phrases in text

• Syntactic measures:

• words per clause, clauses per t-unit, main length of utterances (mlu), main length of turns (mlt)

• Personalized coding

CHAT

• CHAT Transcriptions

• Transcribing Essays (Manual1)

• Transcribing Discussions (Manual 2)

• *Clause Coding (Manual 3)

CHAT

• CHAT Transcriptions

• Transcribing Essays (Manual1)

• Transcribing Discussions (Manual 2)

• *Clause Coding (Manual 3)

Transcribing essays in CHAT

CHAT Essay Transcription

File Header(@)

Main Tier(*XXX)

Dependent Tier(%xxx)

File Headers• M1-p.1

• Hint:

• Super important for exporting results

• use the Template

Main Tiers• The main tier gives the basic transcription of what the speaker said or wrote (*STU).

• Basic Principals (M1-p.2)

• Punctuation

• Utterance terminators: . ! ? (should not appear in the middle of a main tier)

• Put all other punctuations used by the students in brackets [,] [:] [“] [!!!]

• Lowercase except for proper names, e.g. James_Brown

• Acronyms: e.g., U_S_A

• Numbers: written out in words, e.g., two hundred and fifty six

• @End: Each transcript must be completed with this symbol.

• A new line will be started at the beginning of each T-unit (M1 - Appendix I)

T-unit Coding• M1-Appendix I

• Definition of T-unit

• “T-units are defined as thematic units of complete and autonomous meaning, corresponding to a main clause plus all the subordinate clauses embedded in it.” (Hunt, 1983)

T-unit Coding (con’t)• 1 T-unit

• Single independent main clause

e.g. I like math class.

• Main clause with subordinating clause(s)

• Relative clause - e.g. The person who lives in that house is nice.

• Complement clause - e.g. I think that he is nice.

• Dependent clause - e.g. She helped me because she is nice.

• Adverbial clause - e.g. Sarah ran as fast as she could.

T-unit Coding (con’t)• 2 or more t-units

• Coordinate clauses

• clauses connected by coordinative conjunctions: and, but, for, nor or, yet, so

*STU: for my birthday [,] I got a new toy airplane.

*STU: and I got to go to the zoo.

Main Tier (con’t)• Standardized Spellings (M1-p. 3-4)

• Spelling errors [: ]

• Assimilations [: ]

• Contractions [: ]

• Apostrophe ’s (ha)s

Main Tier (con’t)• Example:

He’s gonna be angny at me.

CHAT Transcription:

*STU: he’s [: he is] gonna [: going to] be angny [: angry] at me.

Main Tier (con’t)• Example:

It’s okay if your opinion is different from other people’s.

CHAT Transcription:

*STU: it’s [: it is] okay if your opinion is different from other people (ha)s.

Dependent Tier• M1-p.4

• Dependent tiers are lines typed below the main tier that contain codes, comments, events and descriptions of interest to the researcher (%cod, %com, %xxx).

Example:

*STU: however, I disagree with him.

%cod: $OPN

Gem Header• Gem headers are used to mark the transcripts into segments.

Example:

@bg: paragraph

*STU: I believe schools should not sell junk food.

*STU: they are harmful to students’ health.

@eg: paragraph

@bg:paragraph

*STU: however, students should get some treat occasionally.

@eg: paragraph

CHAT Essay Transcription• Review:

• File header (use template)

• Main Tier (principals & standardized spelling)

• Dependent Tier (personalized coding)

• Gem header (marking paragraphs)

Let’s practice!• Create a folder to store essay transcriptions

• Set working directory in CLAN

• CLAN—Windows—Commands

• Open a blank document

• CLAN—File—New

• Start transcribing!

• Template1_Essay.cha

• Data1_MA_B_SWG_WS_TCU_3_KB

Transcribing Discussion in CHAT

CHAT Discussion Transcription

Multiple participants

@ID header for each participant

Multiple speakers on the main tier

Main Tiers• Basic Principals (M2-p.3) - what is different from essay

transcriptions

• Punctuation:

• Regular utterance terminator . ! ?

• Special utterance terminator

• +… +..? +!? +/. +/?

• Commas could be used to mark phrasal junction

• Pauses: (.) (..) (…)

• Unintelligible words: xxx

Main Tiers• Basic Principals (M2-p.3) - what is different from essay

transcriptions

• Retracing

• Repetition [/] Retracing [//] Reformulation [///]

Example:

*ST1: <I wanted> [/] I wanted to invite Margie.

*ST1: <I wanted> [//] uh I thought I wanted to invite Margie.

*ST1: <I wanted> [///] all of us thought we should invite Margie.

Dependent Tier• Use the %com line to note any noteworthy information

Example:

*ST1: after ten years, and they’re [: they are] like, [“] I don’t [: do not] care. [”].

%com: the student chuckles

• Use the %tim line to periodically indicate the time

*ST1: we’re [: we are] all done for now.

%tim: 01:05:40

Gem Header• Use gem headers to mark sections in the

discussion.

@bg: smallgroup

*ST2: maybe when he’s [: he is] bigger, he tells her.

*ST3: I don’t [: do not] agree.

@eg: smallgroup

Let’s practice!• Create a folder to store discussion transcriptions

• Set working directory in CLAN

• CLAN—Windows—Commands

• Open a blank document

• CLAN—File—New

• Start transcribing!

• Template2_Discussion.cha

• Data2_Barbieri CR Transcript_Cooper’s Lesson

Clause Coding• Manual 3_clause coding Manual

• Add [c] at the end of each clause after you have done a transcription

• “Save as” a different file in a separate folder: e.g., 001_c.cha

Review• CHILDES: CHAT, CLAN, Database

• CHAT

• Transcribing essays

• Transcribing classroom discussions

• Coding clauses

• Lay a solid foundation for CLAN Analysis!!!

Thank you!